


The Boy is Mine

by Ultra



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe, American Football, Awkward Conversations, Exes, F/M, Happy, Love Triangles, Moving On, Parker Being Parker (Leverage), Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-21 15:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15561159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: Parker and Eliot run into Aimee in the last place they expected. Eliot's past vs. Eliot's future makes for an interesting conversation.





	The Boy is Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Fostersb (for her birthday, 2013) and based on her idea.

It was one of those freak happenings, a chance meeting in the most unlikely place between two people that hadn’t been in touch in years. Sometimes people just drifted apart, but this had been more of a conscious decision, especially on his part. 

For the longest time, Eliot kept tabs on Aimee. He needed to know she was okay, that her moving on was the right thing. After a while, he just stopped doing it. Maybe it was because he had moved on too, found a family of his own to cling to.

It happened before he and Parker ever got close, that was for sure. She wasn’t the reason he stopped watching out for Aimee, though these days she was pretty much his reason for everything else. It was strange for Eliot to realise that they were going to meet again too; the ex he had once thought was his future and forever, and the woman who really was proving to be just that. The last time they came face to face had been on one of the first jobs Team Leverage ever pulled. Since then, Aimee got married again. Last Eliot heard she was pregnant. Maybe that was what stopped him checking in anymore, because this time it seemed so serious.

“Of all the stadiums in all the world.” She smiled when she saw him. “Eliot Spencer has to walk into mine.”

“’S been a while, Aimee,” he replied with a smile of his own that came to his lips unbidden. “You look good.”

“You too.” She nodded. “But then you always did.”

A lesser man might’ve blushed at that, but Eliot just wasn’t built that way. Still, it was a strange thing to hear from her after so long. Here she was, the first woman he had ever fallen in love with, one of only two in his whole life. She looked the same in so many ways, obviously a little older, maybe a little more tired now he looked closer, but enough like her old self that it sent a shiver through him. The past wasn’t a place Eliot much liked to visit anymore.

“Hey,” the sound of his future broke through the fog, and then two arms appeared across his chest, with a chin on his shoulder. “I got back to the seats and you weren’t there,” said Parker as she hugged him from behind.

“And you couldn’t just wait for me to come back?” Eliot smirked as he awkwardly twisted his head enough to kiss her lips. “I was gettin’ a beer that’s all, and then I ran into a familiar face,” he explained, gesturing vaguely towards Aimee.

Parker followed his gaze back to the red-head and her eyes noticeably narrowed. She didn’t like Aimee. Her reasons were many and varied, and they started in a time-frame so many years before Parker ever even met Aimee, or Eliot for that matter. She didn’t like the way Aimee behaved with Eliot back then, and given half the chance she was going to tell her so.

“Oh,” Aimee reacted with evident surprise. “You two are...? Oh.”

“For a year now.” Parker nodded, holding Eliot a little bit tighter, nevermind the fact her grip was becoming a choke-hold, she didn’t seem to notice.

“Officially, yeah,” Eliot agreed, pulling on Parker’s arm just a little bit so she didn’t strangle him. “But I guess it was on the cards a long time, I was just too dumb to see it.”

“I think so, yeah.” Parker smiled wickedly, even as her boyfriend hauled her around in front of him, laughing at her gall. “Why don’t you go get your beer already? The teams will be playing again soon, and I won’t know what’s happening unless you’re back,” she complained, glancing down towards the field.

Eliot still hadn’t figured out how a person, be they male or female, got to the age of thirty or more, without knowing anything about football. At least Parker had a mind to learn these days and she was a pretty quick thinker, she’d know what was what before they left the stadium today, he was sure. Still, she had a point about not following without him, and this situation with Aimee was starting to feel awkward at best. He checked if Parker wanted anything and then headed off to the concessions stand.

“Good to see you, Aimee,” he told her as he walked away, because it was in a way, and yet the old feelings weren’t coming back half so strong as had once.

“You too.” She smiled sadly as she watched him go.

Eliot was Aimee’s first love, her true love perhaps. No relationship since had ever really worked out because nobody stood up to the man who won her heart when they were all of fifteen. Nobody ever could.

“So, you’re married now, right?” said Parker, getting Aimee’s attention back from Eliot.

The thief considered maybe that was her own fault. She had slapped him on the ass as he walked away and that would draw any woman’s attention. Still, Aimee had no business staring at Eliot’s butt or any other part of him, especially if she had a husband now.

“I was,” said the red-head, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Second marriage, second divorce, unfortunately,” she sighed. “What can you do?”

“I don’t know, what can you do?” asked Parker with a frown. “I mean, all I know for sure is what you shouldn’t do, and that’s come after Eliot anymore.”

“Parker, I’m not coming after him. I didn’t even know he was here!” Aimee laughed at the very suggestion, though deep down she knew that if Eliot had been single today she would’ve happily taken him home to her house, to her bed, in a heartbeat.

“Good,” Parker nodded once. “You lost, you know? Eliot loved you for a long time, but he knew you couldn’t love him back”.

“Hey, that’s bull!” Aimee immediately argued, pointing an angry finger at Parker. “I did love him. I do. Always have, and always will.”

“No,” the thief argued with a sad shake of her head. “You probably did love him once, when you were kids or whatever, but that’s not him anymore. You still love the teenager you fell for in high school or down on your farm or whatever happened.” She waved it away as something unimportant, because to Parker it really was that easy. “Eliot told me everything. Everything he’s ever done, everything he regrets, all of it. I look at him and I still see the man I love,” she said definitely, her hand going to her chest. “I love all of him, and he loves all of me, even when I drive him crazy.”

Parker made a face at her own words when she realised how incredible that part really was. She never thought it was all that amazing that she could love a man like him, that had killed, that had seen such horrors as Eliot explained from his past, both causing pain and suffering so much himself. He had gone through so many changes and had come out the other side as strong and kind as anyone she ever met. She was the one who was broken out of the two - strange, crazy, and ill-equipped for company in the beginning. He made her better without trying to change her. They did that for each other, and Parker didn’t think for a moment that she played second-fiddle to Aimee in Eliot’s heart. He was over his first love, who had only known one version of him and couldn’t deal with what came after. Parker could deal with it all, and they both knew it. That was the major difference between her and the woman stood before her now.

“I’m glad he found somebody like you, Parker,” said Aimee then. “I’d argue with you, but... but I don’t think I can,” she admitted with a hollow laugh. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you do know him better. You probably love him better too, but I loved him first.”

“Playground rules?” Parker snickered. “You were his first,” she agreed, looking towards the concessions stand as Eliot started heading back to her with two beers in his hands, “but I’ll be his last,” she said with a confidence she never knew she had in love until she fell for Eliot.

Parker walked back to her seat with her arm around her boyfriend’s waist and his around her shoulders. Neither of them looked back at Aimee for a moment, didn’t even give her a second thought in fact. The past was something to be learned from, but not to dwell on. The present and the future was what mattered, and that was a place where Eliot and Parker belonged together.


End file.
